As population grows all over the world, land has become more and more expensive, especially when it comes to a land under the jurisdiction of major cities. In order to allow relatively large population to occupy a given area, while maintaining reasonable costs, building tall buildings in general and sky scrappers in particular has become a necessity, and therefore, a common practice. Accordingly, tall buildings, including sky scrapers, are most typical to modern cities all over the world. However, tall buildings pose a special problem, which is related to their being high; i.e., escaping high buildings in; e.g., a case of fire, is problematic. The problem is related to several facts: (1) most aerial ladder trucks have standard collapsible fire ladders, or tower ladders, that are incapable of coping with the loftiness of high buildings. That is, a standard collapsible fire ladder may reach only limited number of floors of a tall building; (2) Even in cities where the fire brigade has very long ladders, it is most likely that the ladder truck would get stuck in a traffic jam, which is most common phenomena in modern cities. Any delay in reaching a building where a long ladder is required, might jeopardize the lives of the building residents; (3) Even if a sufficiently long ladder is brought to the site on time, the ladder could support, at a given time, only a few people because the longer the ladder, the more it tends to swing, thereby risking the lives of the people that it supports; (4) Due to the physical strength that is required when descending a long ladder, it is usually very difficult for fat or sick people to utilize such tall ladders, if at all; (5) The environmental circumstances may be so, that there might be a chance that even though long ladders are available, it would be very difficult, if at all, to handle the turntable mounting of the aerial ladder truck and put the ladder in the right place and/or on time.
Currently, there are several solutions for coping with the problem of people being required, or compelled, to timely evacuate tall buildings.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,550,576 discloses a rescue system for rescuing occupants from high floors in tall buildings. However, the rescue system of U.S. Pat. No. 6,550,576 has the drawback that each one of the rescued persons would have to use a personal cable cartridge. The problem is that the weight of a replaceable cable cartridge depends on the cable housing and also on the overall length of the cable, which, in some cases, must match the maximum height of the building. Therefore, a heavy replaceable cable cartridge would be rather difficult to handle by; e.g., old, sick and, in general, weak people.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,467,575 discloses a rescue system that is based on a spiral-tube. However, the spiral-tube has to be lowered from the roof of a building using crane equipment that is mounted on top of the roof of the building.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,467,575 discloses a controlled descent device that is based on rotatable drum that is coupled to a centrifugal brake mechanism.
All of the above-mentioned solutions have not provided a satisfactory solution to the problem of ensuring that residents of a tall building are able to timely and conveniently escape the tall building.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an escape kit for ensuring that residents of a tall building would be able to escape the building timely and independently of external rescue services.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an inexpensive escape kit that is very easy to operate by unskilled, or inexperienced, persons.
Other objects and advantages of the invention will become apparent as the description proceeds.